Traveling the world with my mom for 4th grade...

Category: Uncategorized (Page 2 of 6)

Cape Town on the Continent of Africa 


Hi, it’s Me, Cricket!  I will be telling you about my first time in  Cape Town, South Africa and the beach that is 1 hour away!! We are staying at the beach for 4 days! And then we go back to Cape Town for touring and MOMMY’S BITHDAY!!!! 


Ok, let me tell YOU some stuff!  First off, I left the continent of Europe! I am on a new ( and hot continent! Arica! We are in the country of South Africa and the city of Cape Town. Well, the real Cape Town is where we were staying. It is the area right in the town where everything is going down. It was nice, fun and at night we heard the best karaoke from a bar down the street. During the day we saw so much music on every corner and dancers everywhere.We saw some kids dancing out on the street in face paint mommy said it might be a family tribe! 



We walked around looking at everything. 


We had a hard times finding the…. WATER FRONT!! The waterfront isn’t really the real Cape Town. It is the touristy area. We were tempted to get a taxis but we FOUND it! It was a big place with a Ferris wheel, stores and food. When we were leaving I saw several seals in the harbor! Soon other people saw them  too!! 

 The next day it was the day to go to the beach, but we had time to see a little more so we sat at a place to eat and gave money to every street music player we heard!!! Cape Town is very lively! Lots and lots of people and lots of music everywhere you go. It is time to relax and head  to the beach on False Bay…

We decided to try the beach at Muizenberg. It is on False Bay right on the other side of Table Mountain. We will explore Table Mountain when we get back to Cape Town. We are still in Cape Town. Just not the city area of Cape Town. When we got to the beach, I felt the breeze on my face. It is a bay, but the ocean is right there and it is still the Atlantic Ocean. STOP ,lessen one : Did you know that that tip of Africa has two oceans that meet each other? On mommy’s birthday we will go down to the part where the oceans meet! I’m so excited to see the Atlantic ocean join the Indian Ocean! How cool is that?! Anyway, it felt so good because I was in the cold for so long in Europe. When we were in the car going to the hotel,  I saw my first look at the beach! It has been a long time since I have seen the beach! The wind is very strong here too so the waves were pretty big and there are kite surfers and surfers Everywhere!  


The first day we took a through town to get me flip slops! You have to have flip flops at the beach!  


Our hotel is great! It is right at the beach and has the best view. we even have a balcony that faces the beach too!   We are surrounded by mountains and the beach.  And the sun come up right outside our balcony . I haven’t seen it, but mommy said it is the clearest sun she has ever seen.  She said it is like a huge sparkly yellow diamond coming out of the water. Cool, right? 

Right about now, you are probably wondering about the weather. It is hot during the day, but gets super cold as the sun goes down. Also, the wind can make it really cold when the sun is out. Crazy. 


The beach is so windy! And has really great tide pools with thousands of cool cool cool cool cool cool shells and I’m not exaggerating! People did not care about the cool cool cool cool cool shells, it was crazy.  We saw a star fish in he tide pools too!! The beach is HUGE so you can walk forever. And mommy wants to.  Ugh. That is a long walk. Here is lessen 2. Did you know that they have people looking for sharks all the time! They have a lot of Great White Sharks in False Bay and a lot lot lot of them are at this one beach. Gulp. Back to the beach walking, you see so many surfers and wind surfers here. The wind surfers go flying in the air like birds! Again, not exaggerating. They are flying!


​Guess what else we saw???? On the beach, I saw a dead…👮🏽hold up, lessen 3. Here are some names of seals there Elephant seal, Harp seal,Harbor seal,Gray seal,Spotted seal,Monk seal,Leopard seal and Ringed seal. We saw a dead Fur seal! So sad! Normally, I would see dead fish not seals!!!! 
Well, thanks for reading my blog and hope It was fun for you. 

Bye!!!!

One more! 👮🏽 lessen4. Different ways to say bye: adios,aloha ,arrivederci ,ciao ,au revoir ,bon voyage,sayonara, shalom, totsiens, vale! 

That was a long bye!

Rod Stewart, The People of Scotland and Fun Times in Glowsgow 

Hi, and I am in Glasgow,Scotland right now! Not for long though because we are waiting for our plane back to London.  It is only a one hour flight!


Ok, I will tell you some things we did and I will tell some stuff about Scotland.     

First thing we noticed was that everyone was SO NICE and they all were really funny, joking with us  everywhere we went and just so happy.  Everyone we met loved hearing where we were from.  They all seemed very interested to talk to us and joke around. That was really the best thing. Oh, and the kilts. Even the conceirge in our hotel was were a kilt which was so funny and cool.  Mommy said he had the purse around his waist because there is no place to put his wallet! 


 We went to the Rod Stewart concert at the Hydro!!!!


Wave your hands in the air like you don’t care!!! So… I was the only kid there! Crazy right? It was mostly people who were my mom’s  and G’s age! So, that was nice because there was no rushing and pushing, there were seats for everyone, and not much security making a big deal searching people. AND mommy and I had great seats. Sir Rod Steward (he was knighted by the Queen!) played lots of old songs and just a few new ones. Best part was when he played mommy’s favorite song 😍🎼 MAGGIE!!! I loved it because he talked to the audience the entire time.  I love when a performer does that. It was so great too because people were singing with him and he had his daughter sing on stage too!!! I just LOVE that. He also had the most funny stuff in the background. It was crazy how much the crowd cheered when he said in his song”your Celtic” (talking about the famous football team from Goscow). The crowd went crazy another time…. when he sang MAGGIE!!!!  Well, that is it for Rod Stewart! It was my second big concert and I loved it. 


Another thing we did was the FUN FAIR!!! The fun fair was small with only 4 rides and bi🐋g stands. It was a Christmas market in a square in the middle of town. I will name the ri🎡des… the merry go round.  And it was so fast!the fastest ever!  You could be in a snow globe and play in snow while getting your photo taken. We did not go on that ride. The third ride was a huge slide that looked like light house!!! The last ride was a ba👶🏻by ride. A little baby train. The stands were fun too. They had a stand for mommy to get a 🍺 called a beer garden. They had a place to see Santa🎅🏼  and he gave all the good kids👧🏼 a gift and that was fun! There was also food stands, wood work stands, cloth stands and lots more. That is it for fun fair!!! We bought an ornament with our names put on it. The Graff Family!


We also went to a tea room called the Willow Tea Room.  Willow was the name of Mommy’s dog so she was very excited to go there.  The inside is designed by a famous designer called Mackintosh. It was really pretty. We had the best cake ever too.  Maringue with ice cream and butterscotch. Yummy!


The last thing we did was go to the coolest museum ever!  This is the last part of my blog. 😢- don’t cry little emoji. we will make it the best part of the blog!!🤗 . Welcome my new guest emoji girl!😉 She will be helping me with this last part. Just for fun.  

So, let’s hear the last part from emoji girl 🤓:Hi! Cricket went to the River Side Museum!😏



Thank you emoji girl. 


The River Side Museum is a place that shows boats,👏🏼thank you! It had cars and bikes. 😶…what emoji girl?  You want to talk?…. I guess you can talk…


🤓:They had cars, boats, buses, trains, subways, bikes, motorcycles and lots more! They were from a long long time ago……….!!!🎶  


NO, emoji girl, do not start singing!! 

 😎: They even had a car made from stolen parts of other cars!🤓A man who say the car in a for sale ad, calledthe police. The police took one look at it and could tell it was a huge problem!!!!😌 

Good job emoji girl. Now let me take over. 

😭 

Sorry.  I am taking over now so I can tell them more about this cool museum.  It was my favorite museum out of all I have seen so far!

 🤐

There was some cars that would cost a lot of money. They even had a RV from a famous family. The Carter family. They spent 30 years living in it and traveling all around the United Kingdom with their carnival. It would be like living with my emoji family 👨‍👨‍👧‍👦🚕. Not sure I would like that for 30 years. 


The museum even had a street built inside on it that was a street you would see in the 1860’s-1930’s. that was my favorite part because you could go inside the shops and bus.  They even put a real mailbox on the street. We mailed a postcard to one of Mommy’s friend’s daughter’s class. She is in Kindergarten in Mandeville, Louisiana and they are doing a thing where people send them postcards from all over the work all year long.  They make an album of the cards and learn about everywhere.  We send them a postcard from every country we visit.  We are on country number 9 now. Let’s see: Iceland, France, Greece, Italy, Czech Republic, Austria, Poland, England and Scotland. Yes, 9! Next is South Africa unless we can fit a trip to Ireland in before January 3rd. 

Well, sorry to say we are done with today’s blog!!! We saw a lot more in Glasgow, Scotland and it was all really great.  I will hopefully go back one day and see the Loch Ness Monster, Nessie! It is three hours away from Glasgow so we didn’t have time to do that this time. We only had 3 days. We just flew back to London and I am in a cab doing this! We couldn’t take the train home because the train workers are on stike. Hope they get the more money they want!

Bye!

London, England is BIG With My Favorite Thing To Do – Plays!!!

Hi, I am in Londen, England!!! I love  it!! You know why I like it?  It is English and that means every has the best accents! And they have lots of plays! I have seen 2 so far and will see 2 more before I leave!  I am staying in Londen for 4 weeks and in the best neighborhood! Nottinghill.  We are right next to the best market, bus and lots of great streets!! I love that we are staying for Christmas too.  This first photo is Portobello Street in our neighborhood. It is a really fun street with EVERYTHING!  It has shops, restaurants, coffee shops, bakeries, grocery stories, pubs, street vendors selling all kinds of things and even a famous movie theater. 

The next photo is of me wowed that they drive on the side that we do not!!! If I sat in the front I would feel weird too. I bet mommy would feel like she would have to drive if she was sitting up front in the passenger seat.  


I just loved the buses because they have a top and a bottom .  They are called double decker buses.  You do not have to take a  tour bus that takes  you around the city since you have buses that are the same and the buses bring you every where!! They also have a subway called the Underground, but people also call it the Tube. That is the title photo on my blog. We take the bus more because it stops right at our house. Easy and super fun! I keep trying to get the first seat on the top deck so I can feel like I am driving, but everyone beats me to it.  I got it once, but for a really short time.  It still was great!

This next photo is just so funny, it is a party tea bus!

This is me on the top deck of a double decker bus.  You can see everything from the top deck!

This next photo is a pub.  They let kids in and it feels like a bar! They have pubs on almost every corner in almost every neighborhood. Everyone loves their neighborhood pub. It is a restaurant and a bar all in one.  They have funny names too like the Slug and Lettuce. Funny!!!

This is my first show and first night in London.  We went to see Stomp.  It is a performance like a band, but they are making noise on everything! The plays and musicals in London are in an area they call Westend. 


This is our house for the month. They call them flats not apartments.  We got a tree delivered! We decorated out tree with toys and popcorn! It was fun! The popcorn took a long time too.


We went to the Natural History Museum and it was so cool.  My favorite part were the stuffed animals in the mammals section.  They were real dead animals! We saw lots of great dinosaur bones.  The fist photo is a new part of the museum called Darwin’s Cacoon.  You go inside the Cacoon and you learn how to be a scientist like Darwin.  He is a famous English scientist that lived from 1809-1882. He was a naturalist who changes science! He said all species of life has descended over time from common ancestors.  That is huge and I am still trying to understand it.  It means we came from monkeys.  Anyway, this center lets you see the scientist at work too.  

K

I went to my second play called School House Rock.  It was awesome! Kids rocked out and it was actually the kids playing the instruments and rocking out in a band.  I LOVED the show! They were my aged kids too.  Cool!!


 

This last pictures is of just one of the crazy things for sale at the Portabello weekend market my our flat.  It is really a fun market.  Great music and food everywhere too.  I love it.


Well, I am in Scotland for 2 days so I need to go out and see stuff.  

Bye!!!

Good and Bad in Poland


We went to Warsaw, Poland for two days. We visited the biggest concentration camp from World War II. It is called Aushwitz.  That is the bad. I saw snow for the first time. That is the good part.  But there was a lot more good things about our trip to Poland too.  It is just hard to talk about all the good things when the bad was just so bad. 

This is a Auschwitz. It is a very bad place in history. It is where the German Nazis killed millions of people. Most of them or Jewish a lot of them or Polish and some of them were Gypsies and lots of other different types of people. We didn’t take any pictures inside because it was too sad. One of the things I remember the most was that they lied to all the people and said it would be great to go to Auchwitz and that it would take them away from the horrible war. Some people even paid to go to Auschwitz. The worst thing I remember is seeing a huge room full of hair. They shaved everyone’s hair when they first got there and sold it to German businesses. There was a big pile of reading glasses too. It’s very hard to talk about Auchwitz because it’s just so sad. They were even rooms where they would put people in to starve them to death. It is very cold there and no one had anything else to wear except for what looked like pajamas. You either went to work all day long or you were killed. They even had experiment where they would see how long it would take for people to die doing different things. They took a newborn baby and they wanted to see how long it would take the baby to die without drinking any milk. One story they told us was about a Polish priest whogave his life in exchange for another prisoner to be saved. He was put into the cell where they starved people to death. After a long time, The priest had not died yet so they ended up giving him poison that killed him. But the man who’s place the Priest took the punishment for one into his 90s.  He was a father and he ended up having grandchildren and had a long happy life. The Priest was made a saint! Saint Maximillian Kolbe. I even saw a picture of the pope praying in the cell where they tried to starve him to death. Auchwitz is so sad that I cannot talk about it anymore. I kind of wish I hadn’t gone but I really understand what happened in World War II much better now beacause I went there. 

Warsaw, Poland had to be almost totally rebuilt after World War II. The Germans on one side of the river wanted to destroy everything and take it over. The Russians were on the other side of the river and they did not want to destroy Warsaw but they did want to take it over.  That is why on one side of the river in Warsaw it is all new building and on the other side of the river it’s still the old buildings from before World War II. The Polish people fought very hard against the Germans and Russians. 

The photo above is my favorite restaurant there. The soup is the best soup ever and I actually found a suit just like hers at this restaurant. I went back to have it twice.


We went to the Copernicus museum. It was three stories of all kind of science experiment that kids can do all by themselves. This is one of the things you can play with. It is called a pendulum. 

This next photo shows what it looks like to make a weather forecast and weather radar’s. It lets you take sand and if you build the sand up really high it shows it as a mountain on a weather forecast radar. So you can make flat areas that turn different colors and if you separate the sand it shows it as island it’s really cool and when you put your hand over the sand it shows up as rain on the screen. It made us learn how to read a weather radar. It was so cool!


 
This is the first snowman I have ever seen! I’ll tell you story about how we found it. We were walking along, going to the museum and all of a sudden mommy said ‘snowman!’.  I couldn’t see it at first, but then I saw it. It was in this park and it was so pretty with snow everywhere. It was a perfect snowman and even had a carrot for a nose and sticks for arms with branches are hanging on. It could not have been any better. I was so excited. 


​What I learned about Poland with that the people are very strong people. They have gone through a lot and have bought back.

Mozart is Cool and Vienna at Christmas is a Wonderland

Edit

I went to my first classical music show in Vienna. I was excited because I had read about Mozart and thought that he was so special and he did lots of funny things.  Mozart is from Austria. Austria is the country that Vienna is in.  Mozart was just 6 when he performed an amazing piano piece for a big audience.  He surprised everyone with how he could make music.  He was also very funny. Anyway, the first thing we did was go to a church for a classical music concert.  I thought Mozart would be my favorite.  It was actually Vivaldi’s Spring from his Four Seasons. My mom had wanted to go see Vivaldi’s Four Seasons when we were in Venice, but she didn’t think I would like it.  Wrong! I can’t wait to see it now.  I even bought a little music box that plays Spring.  

We went to an amusement park that had no rides open except for a really cool Farris wheel that was like train cars going around.  And it snowed! That was very cool


Vienna even has a whole museum for kids to learn about music.  Kids get to do whatever they want like run up and down on the piano stairs! It wasn’t just instruments.  We also got to learn about how our ears can hear music and all about the famous composers.  I even got to conduct an orchestra. It was a piece by Mozart and it was the Vienna orchestra, but they got mad at me because it was hard to do the right beat with the stick. 

We went to a cooking show at the Hamburg Summer Palace. It was so pretty.  The show was about how to make apple strudel. It was great.  

Vienna had Christmas markets everywhere! They were really cute and around every corner. 

The horse show! We went to the Spanish Riding school to see the Lipinzzer horses perform.  The school is over 400 years old and the horses are very special! They can dance like ballet dancers! 

The Christmas lights in Vienna are totally different than any place I have ever seen.  They are so fancy and EVERYWHERE! 

Well, got to go check in to our flight now.  Bye! We are leaving Poland for England!

 The Most Amazing Place to Stay for Three Weeks is Prague 

Wow, I love Prague. Do you know why? Well,they are sooooooo relaxed and they know how to have FUN!!! And we’ll, let’s start talking!
The first photo is our view today. See the Christmas market???!!!   We have the best neighborhood because it is a real neighborhood. It  has no tourist! Just regular people walking around and that means we can be a part of a neighborhood and get to know the people and places around us.  Also, when you are in a neighborhood, people don’t speak English and that’s cool because you really feel like you aren’t home.  In a touristy area everyone only speaks English to you.  And when you are in a real neighborhood you get to see what they’re supermarkets and craft stores are like.  I loved buying tape at the craft store because it’s different than what I have at home.  Plus, no tourist are running around wanting to take a tour of the supermarket, but if we want to go to a museum or to the touristy areas, we just have to jump on a tram or take the metro.  


The biggest tourist area in Prague is Old Town.  One of the biggest things to see there is the Astrological Clock.  The first part of the clock was built in 1410. Every hour, on the hour the clock gets a big crowd gathered below to see the a skeleton ring his bell, the statues next to the skeleton shake their heads no all while the 12 disciples circle above. A golden roaster crows at the end and the whole crowd claps and cheers.  I have watched it 5 times because I found a restaurant right in front of the front of the clock that has the best chicken in the world! At least in the world that I have seen so far.


Prague has one of the best zoos in the world. It has animals that I have never seen before like Polar Bears and hippos.  The zoo didn’t have any rides, but had lots of one type of animals like 2 polar bears and 3 hippos.  Not just one lonely animal.  The elephants had a HUGE area and lots of elephants.  They even had a baby.  Most all of the animals had babies.  

It did have one ride but it was not really a ride.  It was a way for the people to get from the top of the zoo to the bottom.  I must be getting more brave because I rode it! It was so fun too.  


I went to my first real soccer game.  They call it Football.  It was huge and it actually snowed while the game was going on.  I was glad the roof was a little over me, but the players had to play in the snow.  The crowd LOVED it and were going crazy! They were all very happy.

We went to 100s of shows, when not really hundreds, but a lot.  We went to a bunch of black light shows.  All different kinds too.  The first one we saw was my favorite and the oldest in Prague.  It was a comedy show.  Another one we went to was art with black light.  Another black light show was abut Alice from Alice in Wonderland. It was more like a black light show.  Another one was like a magic show with black lights.  Prague must be known for it’s black light theater because they are everywhere. We also saw a whole play done with shadows.  It was so cool.  I didn’t know that shadows could do all of that! I just usually do my hands talking.  

The sidewalks in Prague are all patterns and interesting.  Every single one of them too.  They get slippery in the rain and snow.  They kill your feet when you walk for a long time.

Czech Republic  is known for it’s beer and the love that the people have for the beer. Some say that is why the communist could take over and no one really cared too much.  The communist made sure beer was always super cheap.  

They also have this really yummy cinnamon roll that you can fill with chocolate or lots of other things.  It’s called Trudlik.  It’s everywhere and the best ones are made right in front of you on a fire.  

People of Prague really love their fairytales and you can see this everywhere!  You can see puppets everywhere, painted fairytale scenes on shops, goblins and much more.  Maybe It’s because they have the world’s biggest castle.  It is where their present lives.  Hundreds of years ago, they actually had knights on their horses jousting every night inside the castle in this huge room.  That is how HUGE the castle is.  



Prague also supports their rebels.  The first photo is of a building that only accepts bitcoin.  They have a machine that is an ATM that gives out Bitcoins.  Bitcoin is hard to explain.  It’s money that no government owns.  So when we got our Bitcoins to buy a bottle of water, it was a piece of paper that they scanned. This building has lots of different things inside of it. It has a coffee shop and a whole floor for hackers.  They also have an area for 3D printers where everyone there all share all their hard work and build on each others ideas.  No one owns anything. 

One of their biggest rebels is a artist named David Cheney. He did the big babies below.  They are called the Barcode Babies.  He wants to say that people are now a product. His art is all over town.  And the people in Prague love him.  

Prague loves their graffiti artist too.  They even have places around town that graffiti artist can use that is not illegal.  We did see a graffiti artist actually painting some where he wasn’t suppose to.  I was so excited to catch him.  I wanted to take a picture of him, but I thought it was a little too bad to do that and he might get mad. 



One day we went to Kutna Hora which is an hour outside Prague where we saw a church decorated with BONES!

A Sad Day of History 

Hi, today  I was sad.  It was because I learned about the Nazis. Wow.

We drove one hour outside of Prague to Terezin. It was built to be a fortress but it never had to be used. It did get used by the Nazis durning World War II. They turned it into a jail and what they called a Jewish ghetto.  The ghetto was were they sent thousands of Jews. They lied and told the Jews it was a good place to go away from the terrible war that was going on around them.  They also lied and told the whole world that they were not doing anything wrong.  They made movies that were all lies. That is called propaganda. The movies showed a happy life in the Jewish ghetto but they were not happy.  They  did not even have enough food. And the worst part was they were only there to be sent to concentration camps were they were killed or made them work. Most of the time they worked until they died.  


This is the jail. 

This is what the fortress looked like. 

This is art work from kids who lived with their families in the Terezin ghetto. 

Country Number 5…PRAGUE! My First Time Seeing Snow

Hi everybody. Today I am going to tell you a little about Prague and my first time seeing snow.  This fist picture is at the airport when we landed in Prague.  So pretty!!

When I first got in to Prague, I was freezing! It is very cold here.  The first thing I saw was a beautiful sunset.  It was early too.  But the sky was filled with puffy pink clouds.  It was so beautiful.  

I was so happy to see our new apartment.  We are here for almost a whole month too.  This next photo is the Livingroom and view out the window.



Our apartment is HUGE and the view is amazing.  Its right on a park with a beautiful church and right on the park below our window is a yummy delicious bakery.  It’s so busy there that people leave when they walk in and see no seats open. I like to sit there and do my work while Mommy has coffee.  We also have a ton of amazing restaurants around the park too.  We have tried 3 of them.  The pizza place, a place with belgium food and a brewery.   The pizza place was so good.  They cook the pizza in a big stone fire thing.  The brewery, mommy says, has the coolest beer she has ever had.  We have gone back there again too. I got the hot cocoa. It’s very popular.  Lots of people go there so it’s fun to be in the restaurant.  The Belgian restaurant has a play house for kids.  It was mostly only little boys trying to kill each other.  ANd we have lots of grocery stores around us too.  And places to get your nails done! Oh, and they’re is a little hot dog stand in the park too and a little flower hut. It is all so cute. 



Back to what Prague is like.  Prague is like Paris.  Its big and really pretty.  We got a card for riding the metro, bus and tram. We can ride it all month long as many times as we want.  THe tram and bus are right out front at the bakery!  We can go everywhere in town on the tram. The number 22 takes you where you need to go almost every time. 


Our apartment is a big pink building.  I love how pink it is.  And it’s really huge.  We have lots of rooms to play in. Mommy and I sleep on a big bed in a loft but its also like a bunk bed but way bigger.  We are right at the perfect height to look out of the huge windows. I love it.  I woke up this morning and saw snow in the tree tops.  I don’t think I would have seen that if we were in a bed on the floor. 


One day, mommy and I went to the Old Town where all the tourist go.  We found the BEST hot chocolate.  They gave me a cup of hot milk and a stick with a church of chocolate on it.  I just stirred and stirred and made my own hot chocklate.  It was very yummy!  The place was called the Orient Cafe and it is in a cool building that is actually cubanism architecture which you can’t really find any where else. 


They love puppets here too.  And fairy tales.  We have seen so many interesting things.  And we have lots more to explore too.


Last night, we got on the tram in front of our apartment and went to a HUGE arena and saw Prague play Norway in Football.  It was so cod but so fun and rowdy! And that is when I saw my first snow.  It snowed right onto the field! And h=the snow flakes got bigger and bigger and bigger! 

​​


Off to explore more. Bye!!!!!

My Venice Post

Hi, it’s Cricket !!! I am just so happy that you all love my blog. It has been so fun telling you all my stuff!!!! Venice is so fun, and I love the water bus!!! You know why there are water buses?   Well,  Venice is made out of water!!!!! Thear are NO cars and NO streets. Well, there are streets but just for walking.  Do know how GREAT THAT IS? It is awesome! 



The water bus is a big boat with lots of people!!!!! There are a lots of water buses.   Mommy and I stand in the corner of the buses to see the water bus driver, and the water!!!! There is a place that people  can sit that’s nice too. Now, let me tell you about Venice.   

The houses!  They are built in the water.  No one can live on the first floor. Instead of cars, they have boats in front and in their garage!  See the houses behind me?



That is a taxi in the picture above.  Taxes cost a LOT of money. Weird.  

The first night, we went to a yummy restaurant on the Grand Canal. The Grand Canal is the main water way in the tourist area of Venice.  The restarant is IN the water!!! 

Our hotel was right on the Grand Canal too! 


We spent a lot of time walking around walking because the stores were so cool.  Awesome masks shops.  They are a lot like New Orleans with dressing up.  The masks were BEAUTIFUL! Walking around was so awesome because there were no cars, lots of interesting people,  and a ton of super cool stores.  And bridges EVERYWHERE!  We got lost a lot but that is what everyone says you do in Venice.  Get lost and wander around.  Now I know why.  It’s so interesting and pretty.  You just keep walking.  


Gondolas are everywhere! It took us down the side small canals where our gondola driver said the real Venice is.  He said no pone even lives on the Grand Canal anymore.  Funny!

We spend one day going to two museums. Ths house.   Her name was Peggy Guggenheim and her art was modern art that is not that old.  She had a big house and yard full of art.  I loved how she buried her dogs in her garden and she even had a sign with all there names above their graves.  Her art was very interesting.  Some of the art was even made with crayons! 


That is Peggy above! See how cool her house was? I would love to have a Cricket Graff Museum.  

We also to the Leonardo DeVinci Museum.  He was a genuine genius who not only painted the Mona Lisa but created SO MANY THINGS like the hang glider and the bicycle.  He created weapons and the arced bridge! He died in 1519 so that means he and his fellow Italian, Christopher Columbus, were around at the same time.  Leonardo even designed a city and a lot of other fun stuff.  The museum let kids play with some of his inventions.  He was a cool Italian scientist and artist.  He studied dead bodies.

This first picture is of the mirror box he invented so he could see all around the thing he was painting.  ​​
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​Hope you enjoyed your trip with us through Venice.  Time to go explore Prague!  We are going on a graffiti art tour today.  I can’t wait to tell you about it next time. Bye!!!!!!!!!!!

Athens, Rome, Family and Florence

Hi everybody! 

Ok, sorry I havent written in so long. I’ve been busy with my family.


So today you will go on a long blog trip so get your luggage out and follow me from Athens to Italy! Rome and Florence were our first two stops. 


When I saw Daddy at tbe Athens airport, I was so excited!

We had fun playing and I saw my friend from Greece. Sadie. 


We climbed the Acropolis with her and her mom. We also went to the Acropolis Museum. Daddy LOVED it. It was super windy that day. It was Ohi Day so all the miseums were free! Ohi means no. Ohi Day celebrates the day Greece said NO to Mussolini (bad guy) when he asked to march his troups through the country. Ohi!!!


Greece with great, but I was so excited to get to Italy and see my G and Papa!!!!


When I first saw G, she was looking the other way, but Papa saw me and he said I better go say hi to G. She had been waiting and watching for me. When she turned around, she gave me a huge hug. It was so great!


Halloween in Rome was very very scary. Mommy planned a tour for us called Rome Underground! We went to an underground place that was like a palace built out of bones and whole skeletons.  Little girl skeleton hanging like a chandelier and bones everywhere. It was called a crypt. Daddy got a acary tshirt. After that we went to a church that had an older church under it and an older village under that!  That’s three things all in one and you had to go way under ground. 

Also, Mommy got a big idea. It was like a light bulb went offnin her head. Bing! Her big idea was to go tri k or treating at the candy stores. I actually only went to one because i got a huge bag of my favorite kind of chocolates at the first stop. Lindts. I definitly shared with my familu because I’m such a sweet little girl. He he he. Can you see the blow up teddy bear in the pictures above?  Cool right!?

 I loved the fountains in Rome. I wished they let kids swim in them. That would be awesome. 



After I said goodbye to G, Papa and Daddy, we went to the Vatican. The Vatican is a city run by the Pope.  Priest and nuns are walking everywhere. We saw a mummy and the Sistine Chapel. It was cool but i was tired. The Vatican is HUGE. 


Choo, choo !!!! Off to Florence. 

Wow! Florence is like Naxos and Athens together. A lot less people and tradfic than Rome. A city but a little less like a big city. You don’t have to worry so much about bad stuff and everyone is so nice. You can even walk in the streets. 

You know what this hole on the wall in the photo below is for? To move the big paintings! They can’t fit in the doors so they have to fit through those long holes. Like the game Operation.  

We went to the Ufizi Museum in Florence. Mommy got us a tour guide just for kids. She was very nice. Mommy liked seeing all the Italian artists in one place. She LOVED the Birth of Venus. I loved the Medussa on a shield. The ceiling in the hallway was so cool!

If you are blind, you can feel what the painting looks like!

Round paintings were to celebrate new babies. See the frame?? This is Michealangelo. He didn’t like to paint. He was a sculpture. See his frame?


That is a Carvaggio. He painted the Medussa I liked the best. I didn’t get a photo of it. 

Next Pisa!!!!!!!

Today i saw the leaning tower of Pisa! It’s a bell tower that they atarted to build in the 1170s. It was awesome when i saw it. And I climbed to the top! You actually felt likeyou  were going sideways! It leans because it is in an area built abouve an old river. The sand from the river makes all buildinvs in the squate lean. The tower leans the most because it was built with marble. The tower was the most important building at the time because the bells would ring and let the prople know what time it was. That is why it was built out of marble. Alao, it had no windows so really heavy. And the bells were big and loud.  That also made the buolding shake. An important guy, Gallaleo Galleli (think about if your name was like, Cricket Cricy or like that!!!) he did experiments from the top of the Tower. Astronuts did one of his experiments from the moon!  


We were way high up. 

Can you see how the othe buildings are leaning too?


Next we went to cooking school!!!!


Really yummy! If you don’t put a lot on your pizza, it will bubble at the crust. I love the bubbles. 

Pizza cooks fast too.  They like to just take whole Roma tomatoes and crush them for the sauce. I did a very little sauce👍.


Anyway, cooking class for pizza and gelato was so fun.  I met a friend there. Her name was Hope. She was 14 and is travelling for a long time with her famiky. Thwy were so nice. They will spend a year in Costa Rica after Europe.  Wow! Cooking class was so fun and guess what? Hope and I got to be teachers for the gelato making. That was great to teach the grown ups! It was like the world was opposite. 

Well, we have to go. Venice tomorrow! I heard it is like New Orleans. 

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